


What Friends Are For

by xanithofdragons



Category: Natsume Yuujinchou | Natsume's Book of Friends
Genre: First Kiss, Friendship, Getting Together, Holding Hands, Love Confessions, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-05
Updated: 2018-05-05
Packaged: 2019-05-02 17:13:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14549463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xanithofdragons/pseuds/xanithofdragons
Summary: Natsume's ready to confess his feelings to Tanuma, but something, or rather,someonekeeps interrupting him.





	What Friends Are For

Natsume and Tanuma were studying together after school one day in Natsume's room at the Fujiwaras' house. Natsume had set up the table in the room, and they had textbooks and notebooks strewn out across it. Pencil in hand, Tanuma leaned over a notebook to write something down. Natsume looked up to see his black hair fall in front of his face, and he got distracted from his own work. He continued to watch Tanuma, appreciating his slender arms down to the hand holding the pencil.

Natsume steeled himself. Touko was out with friends. Shigeru was still at work. Nyanko-sensei hadn't come back yet. He was alone with Tanuma. Natsume was ready. He was going to take this chance to finally tell Tanuma that he liked him.

Natsume had realized that he liked Tanuma romantically a while ago but had told himself almost immediately that he could never say anything. Tanuma's friendship was precious to him, so precious that he wished it could be more. Over time, though, he had started to feel that it was more unfair to Tanuma to never take the chance than it was to tell him. Maybe he was fooling himself, but he wanted to believe that Tanuma valued him at least enough to not let Natsume's feelings for him destroy their friendship. Deep inside his heart, he hoped that Tanuma valued him enough to feel the same way about him.

“Tanuma,” Natsume started. Tanuma looked up at him. “I—“

“Natsume! I'm back home from my patrol.” Nyanko-sensei burst into the room.

“Ah, Sensei, hi,” Tanuma greeted.

“Oh, Tanuma's here.” Nyanko-sensei ran over to Tanuma and jumped into his lap. Tanuma started petting him.

“Oh, yeah, Natsume, what was it you were about to say?” Tanuma asked

“Uh... I forgot. I'm sorry.” Natsume panicked and lied.

“It's okay. I'm sure you'll remember later if it's important.” Tanuma continued petting Nyanko-sensei with one hand while going back to writing in his notebook with the other. Natsume frowned and turned to his own work. He thought about scolding Nyanko-sensei later, but he would have to explain why he was upset to have him join them to do that. Instead he quietly stewed in his disappointment.

-

Sunday of next week Natsume and Tanuma went out to watch a movie together. After they finished watching it, they bought bento at a convenience store and went to eat them in a nearby park. They were eating and laughing over a funny part of the movie together when Natsume's heart swelled looking at the smile on Tanuma's face. Just a little while before, Natsume had kept himself so distant that he couldn't even laugh with Tanuma like this. He had told himself that he wanted to protect Tanuma and the time they shared. Although the feeling of wanting to protect him was true, Natsume had let that be an excuse to hide things from him, and he had let their friendship become stagnant as a result. He didn't want to let that happen anymore.

More than losing Tanuma to the dangers of yokai, he feared losing Tanuma from him getting sick of Natsume's problems. Yet time and time again, Tanuma had said and shown that he wanted to share in Natsume's life, whether that meant hearing stories from him or experiencing things together with him. He wanted to share laughter and so much more with Tanuma, and he knew the words he had to say for that to even be a possibility.

“Natsume?” Tanuma said. At some point Natsume had gotten lost in thought. He took a deep breath.

“What are you eating?” Nyanko-sensei popped out from a bush, startling both of them. “That looks good, give me some.”

“Are you feeling okay Natsume?” Tanuma asked as he gave Nyanko-sensei some of his food.

“Yeah, sorry for worrying you. I'm just happy to spend time with you.” Natsume gave up on confessing for the day.

“I'm glad I got to spend time with you, too,” Tanuma said. Natsume's heart skipped a beat at his smile. He couldn't enjoy it for long, though, as Nyanko-sensei was starting to come after his food too.

“You need to diet.” Natsume held his food away, taking his frustrations out on the one who had interrupted him twice now.

-

Some time later Natsume was visiting Tanuma's house where they were playing shogi together.

“Checkmate.” Tanuma played the winning move. “Do you want to play again? Or maybe...”

“Maybe what?” Natsume asked, holding his breath.

“Maybe...” Tanuma seemed hesitant to continue. “I was thinking maybe, if you wanted to, if you had any stories about yokai lately, you could tell me?”

Natsume didn't know what to say at first. He knew that Tanuma always seemed happy to hear more about the yokai he met. Tanuma had happily accepted so many parts of him that he thought no one would ever accept. It was still rare, though, for Tanuma to directly ask for more like this rather than wait for Natsume to say something. Maybe Tanuma was getting more selfish, and maybe it was time for Natsume to get more selfish too.

Natsume decided in his head exactly how he wanted to finally tell Tanuma how he felt and opened his mouth.

“Natsume!” Nyanko-sensei came running at him and jumped up into his lap. “The new product is out at Nanatsujiya! You promised that you would buy it for me.” For a moment Natsume didn't know what to do. He almost wanted to continue on and say what he had been going to say anyway, but it was too late. His plan had flown from his head when Nyanko-sensei had flown into the room. He glared at the cat in his lap. He didn't think there was any way Nyanko-sensei could be doing this on purpose, but he was stilled annoyed about getting cut off three times now. He sighed and changed course, answering Tanuma's request.

“If you don't mind coming with us, I could tell you how I made that promise to Sensei.” Natsume picked up Nyanko-sensei and stood. 

“I'll come with. I'd love to hear.” Tanuma stood up too, and they went together, Natsume telling his story with interjections from Nyanko-sensei.

-

One school day, it happened to be just him and Tanuma walking home from school, without any of their other friends, and Natsume decided it was as good a time as any once they'd gotten far enough away from school. The more he waited, the more nervous he got about it.

“Um, Tanuma?” Too scared to look into Tanuma's eyes, he stared at his feet instead.

“Yeah?”

“There's something I've been wanting to say to you, but...” Natsume stopped walking and Tanuma stopped a few steps ahead. Natsume opened his mouth, but before he could get any words out he heard footsteps hurrying towards them. By this time, he knew what to expect.

“Natsume! Oh, and Tanuma.” Sure enough, Nyanko-sensei came towards them. This time, though, he had a sack wrapped around his neck.

“What are you carrying?” Natsume asked.

“I managed to get some sweets from a traveling baker yokai. If you ask nicely, I might even share it with you two.” 

“You're being generous today,” Tanuma said at the same time Natsume asked, “They don't have alcohol in them, do they?” After confirming there was no alcohol in the sweets, Tanuma asked if they wanted to go to his house to eat them. The other two agreed and they all went to Tanuma's house together. Once there, Natsume and Nyanko-sensei sat down, and Tanuma went to the kitchen to get plates and make tea.

Natsume had reached his limit. “What's with you?”

“What's with me? I'm not the one acting weird.” Nyanko-sensei accused back.

“What do you mean? Are you saying I'm acting weird?”

“You've been all tense lately, and around Tanuma of all people.” Nyanko-sensei huffed.

Natsume paused. Nyanko-sensei had noticed he was acting different. “You mean you kept coming because you were worried about me?”

“That's not what I said!” 

Natsume smiled. “Thank you, Sensei, but it's—I don't know how to explain it, but it's a good kind of tense I feel around Tanuma.” Nyanko-sensei looked at him questioningly. “I, I like him, and I want to tell him that.”

Nyanko-sensei blinked a few times. “Oh, is that all that was going on? Just hurry up and tell him already.”

“Don't make it sound so easy. We have to be alone, and I have to prepare myself and think about the right words.” His voice trailed off as he spoke.

“Pathetic. You'll never do it that way. But I guess I can deign to leave you two alone if you want.”

“Please, I'll really tell him.” Natsume pleaded.

“Fine.” Nyanko-Sensei slipped out.

“Ah, did Sensei go somewhere?” Tanuma asked when he came back to the room shortly after.

“Yeah, he went to see some of the yokai around Yatsuhara.” Natsume guessed that was where he'd go, anyway.

“By the way, what was it you were saying you wanted to say earlier?” Tanuma set the tea and plates down by the sack Nyanko-sensei had spread out earlier.

“Um...” Here it was, here was his chance. He couldn't tell Nyanko-Sensei to leave them alone so he could confess and then not confess. “Well... I...”

“It's okay, if you're not ready to say after all. I understand.” Tanuma sat down at the table next to him.

“No, I like you!” Natsume blurted out.

“Huh?” Tanuma looked confused. Natsume had wanted to confess his feelings at least half-way decently since he knew he couldn't do it perfectly, but apparently he hadn't even managed comprehensible.

“I mean... What I wanted to say is, I, uh,” Natsume scrambled, wishing for a do-over. “I like you, and, uh, would you go out with me?”

Tanuma only said, “Huh?” again.

“I'm sorry. It's okay if you don't want to. You're already such a good friend to me and—”

“Natsume, I think I like you too,” Tanuma rushed out.

Now it was Natsume's turn to say, “Huh?” Suddenly he noticed that Tanuma was blushing, and wondered if he had been blushing earlier and Natsume just hadn't noticed it. His own face felt hot too, and he felt out of breath.

“I like you too, so... does that mean we're dating now?” Tanuma asked

“I think it does.” Natsume had hoped for an outcome like this, but he could still scarcely believe it. Tanuma was his _boyfriend_ now.

“Um, what do people who are dating do?”

“Um...” Natsume had thought about the possibility of them actually dating and briefly imagined himself holding Tanuma's hand or kissing him, but being unsure of Tanuma's feelings for him always made him hold back from fantasizing too much. “Can I... Would it be okay if I held your hand?”

Tanuma nodded and held out his hand. Slowly, Natsume put his hand out toward Tanuma's and grasped it. They stared at each other wide-eyed for a moment. Tanuma cleared his throat and Natsume looked down. Not knowing what else to do, he squeezed Tanuma's hand, and Tanuma squeezed back.

Emboldened, Natsume looked up into Tanuma's face. Carefully, watching for any reaction, Natsume brought their faces closer together. Tanuma closed his eyes and Natsume pecked a kiss against his lips. His heart felt like it could burst with happiness, kissing Tanuma felt so good.

Natsume thought about kissing him again when he heard a door open. Startled, Natsume and Tanuma let go of each other's hands.

“Sorry, I forgot my portion of the food.” Nyanko-sensei calmly walked to the table and sat down like he wasn't interrupting an intimate moment. “I guess it went well?”

Natsume had really had it this time. He grabbed Nyanko-sensei's face and started pulling on it. Nyanko-sensei struggled to get away, but couldn't until Tanuma started laughing and Natsume couldn't hold back laughter either. The three of them drank tea and ate the yokai-made sweets together.

Maybe Natsume'd end up putting Tanuma in danger or hurting him. Maybe a day would really come when Tanuma got sick of him. Still, Natsume thought the chance to kiss Tanuma and see the shy smile on his face was worth any risk.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm tokeijikakenogaaru on tumblr and xanithofdragons pretty much everywhere else. HMU to talk NatsuYuu or whatever.


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